Snapshots
by Dragon Champion Zero
Summary: Short stand-alone stories, told from the perspective of Pokémon, about the peculiarities of their lives and the events that shaped them.  Most recent posting: Sensitivity
1. Hydrophilia

While I try to work through some obstacles in the main story I'm working on (check my profile if you're interested), I figured I'd put this up. There's no real big story behind this. It's just a section for some short Pokémon-related stories I've written. They're all unrelated one-shots, not terribly long or intense. Most of them are first-person, a perspective I have less experience with, so they might read a little weird, but I tried my best to write them well. I won't be updating this consistently - mainly, it'll just be whenever inspiration strikes, which may be often or never.

This story was written a pretty long time ago. After Pokémon Black rekindled my attention to Pokémon, I took another look at it and improved the writing quality. It centers around a Charmeleon, my favorite Pokémon. Honestly, I think it's more badass than Charizard, but I know I'll get a lot of people disputing that.

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><p><strong>Hydrophilia<strong>

It's funny what fear can do to a guy. I've seen it in action - heck, I've felt it in action myself. There's nothing quite as disconcerting as being stopped cold by sheer terror. But even more than that, it can completely change how people live their lives, how they see the world. It can even kill them. I've heard it said that the only thing to fear is fear itself...well, even if that's true, I say it's definitely warranted.

Maybe it's not true that that's the _only_ thing we have to fear. But it sure seems like people can be afraid of a hell of a lot of things, things that might seem ridiculous to other people. Go ahead and laugh at them, but it's not like they can help it. They didn't ask to be terrified of something that wouldn't usually be frightening. And making light of it is just ignoring the real power that fear can have over someone.

I know from experience. Mine was water. Hydrophobia, they called it. I suppose it would make sense - I'm a Charmeleon, and water in one of the great enemies of our kind. And truth be told, I don't really know what brought it on. I mean, yeah, it was something we were constantly warned about right out of the egg - don't let your tail flame go out. Every Charmander "knows" that our lives rely on our tail flames. It's only when we get older and more experienced that we find out it's just a story they tell us, but it's a story they tell us because those things that risk putting out those flames also risk putting us in serious danger. Falling into a shallow pool might be nothing to worry about for most other Pokémon, but the shock could knock one of us right out, and that means drowning. Or we could get caught out on the cold rain, constantly pelted with what might as well be bullets from the sky, sapping our bodies of their heat and putting us into a dangerous state of hypothermia. So it's not like it was a made-up problem.

But it went a little too far for me.

Water may be a problem for us, but we still need it in our bodies. That put me in a bad bind more often than most, since I couldn't even take a drink most of the time without freaking out. At a few points in my life I had to be forcefully hydrated for my own good, because I would go for hours, even a day or more without drinking a thing just to stay away from water. If there was even a possible threat of rain I wouldn't even consider stepping out of whatever the nearest area of shelter was. And don't get me started on Water Pokémon.

It was probably a good thing that I was caught by a trainer, because I doubt I would ever have managed on my own; I'd have died of dehydration long ago. That's how bad it was. On some level I knew this was far beyond rational, but it never sank in.

So, yeah, I was scared to death of water. But here's the strange part.

At the same time, I was absolutely fascinated by it.

I know how weird that sounds. It wasn't immediate, it started after I'd been caught and trained for a while, and evolved into my current state. And after no small number of incidents with some of my Water-typed comrades and forced hydration sessions to keep me from committing unintentional suicide. My trainer was infinitely patient, and it frustrated me that I was being so difficult for him, he didn't deserve that. Neither did the other Pokémon, especially the Water types, who were perfectly decent guys who I couldn't coexist with for the life of me. So you can guess that I wasn't exactly into it before that time.

It was a thunderstorm that first mesmerized me. I'd never actually seen one before. Oh, sure, I knew they existed, but whenever they came around, I would be cowering in the darkest corner of a den or something so that I could perhaps try to ignore it. Usually it's the thunder that scares young Pokémon, but that never really bothered me - I'd been friends with a Pikachu in my early days and he'd desensitized me to that. After I was caught, I wasn't really exposed to a lot of storms, but one night a storm suddenly kicked up and my trainer had us stay in a hotel. A hotel with a very large window.

I remember standing at the window, claws and nose pressed against the glass, my heart racing and my breath coming in quick gasps. It was pure terror, watching those drops hammer against the glass, almost right on top of me, and the torrents laying sheets of the liquid along the pavement below. I wasn't even in danger of feeling a drop, yet somehow felt like I had the icy spectre of death trying to grip at my insides, holding me firm, refusing my incessant demands to run away and hide beneath the covers (this being a frequent stop for trainers, I had my own fireproof bed, so no risk of torching anything).

And yet...somehow, at the same time, there was this sense of unrestrained awe at the spectacle of it. I'd always been taught that fire was power - not an unlimited power, but surely the essence of power as those I knew saw it. But watching the storm in front of me, I couldn't help but feel like THIS was what power really was - an unrelenting cascade of energy, unstoppable by any force I could even dream of conjuring from my own body. It had me captivated; I felt like I had to know more.

At the time I didn't really have thoughts of overcoming my fear; I just felt this compelling need to know more. Being on the road most of the time, it wasn't an easy task, but I took the downtime in towns to read up in books and on computers. Week after week, month after month, I became more knowledgable. It was no simple task - images of water would do anything from send me jerking back to running off in a panic, and I did damage to whatever I was perusing more than once. I recall my trainer wondering what had gotten into me and why I was tormenting myself like this. I don't know if I could have explained it to him even if I could speak the same language as him.

I learned more about water than probably any Fire-Type Pokémon before me. Not the least of which was why it was so dangerous for us. Our internal temperatures hover around 1200°C - a hefty number compared to humans. The reason we're not always freezing our tail flames off is because our bodies are heated by kind of an internal furnace, and the air around us transmits very little heat so we end up not losing much. Water is a different story. It takes heat away a lot faster than the air, faster than our inner systems can compensate at their regular levels. And it's got something called a low specific heat capacity, meaning it can take away a lot of heat without warming up drastically, so it can just keep taking that heat away constantly.

Truth be told, those aspects aren't as dangerous to us as it might seem. Our bodies try to compensate by kicking our inner heating systems into high gear, so we could be submerged up to the neck for almost a half hour before our body temperatures would start to enter the danger zone. It's definitely not good for us, but not like sudden risk of death bad. The real danger comes from the initial shock. It's almost kind of funny to read about humans warning about the dangers of shock due to ending cold water quickly when they have temperatures in the double digits. To a Charmeleon, even boiling water would be frigid. That shock is what usually does us in, like I mentioned before - we lose consciousness and because of that we drown.

Learning more about it didn't really assuage my fears any - it probably made them worse in some respects. But what it did do was start to overwhelm the fear a bit - it kept my fascination growing, and it kept me exposing myself to it more despite my terror. At some point, I had made up my mind that I had to feel it. More than just a splash or something, I needed to really know what it was like to be IN water.

I got my chance about a year after that thunderstorm. We were staying in a little resort town, in a small, less accommodating hotel. But it was a hotel with an outdoor pool, and as soon as I saw it I knew what I was going to be doing. The thought scared the hell out of me, and simultaneously had me excited.

None of the others had any idea what I was thinking. Looking back, it was stupid of me not to have someone else out there - I was putting myself in serious danger, and I should have had someone keeping an eye on me. I didn't because, well, at the time I was afraid I was going to chicken out and feel humiliated, and didn't want the added stress of someone witnessing that.

It was late at night when I snuck out to the pool. Every part of my body was shaking, and I could feel my heart pounding faster as I approached the edge. As much as I knew about water, I was still pretty unfamiliar with pools, so I didn't realize there were steps I could have entered to make things easier. As it was, I was creeping to a ledge that was deeper than the shallowest end, shaking and shuddering, trying to keep from running off in terror.

Since no one was around, it was pretty dry on the ledge - a good thing, a slippery ledge might have made the situation that much worse. I managed to get into a kind of sitting position, my feet just at the edge of the pool. The water was still, calm, almost innocent, almost as if asking my shaking arms what the problem was. I didn't move forward for a good long while, not sure whether I was going to keep going or going to back off very quickly.

Eventually, I managed to get a little farther forward, to the point where my feet were close to being able to touch the surface. Breathing hard, I steeled myself and went for the final step. I braced my arms on the ground, pushed my body ever so gradually forward, and dipped a foot in.

I thought it was going okay until I got past my toe claws. Then I felt it - a sharp, stabbing pain, the temperature differential playing its card. I tried to keep it down, but it wasn't long before I decided to abort - it was too much, even that little bit.

My body wasn't in on the decision, though. My arms started shaking madly, and before I could pull myself out, they gave way. I just missed hitting my rear on the side of the pool, which would have been the better result; instead, it caught my tail, which propelled me forward rather than backward, and in all of a second I had gone from dipping a toe in to faceplanting the water.

All the battles I've ever fought, and I've fought my share, I've been hit with a lot of nasty attacks. But the pain I felt then completely trumped anything I'd ever felt from any of them. It was like a million toxic swords piercing into every single cell of my body. The terror spiked even harder, driving me to near madness. That may have been my lifesaver; I was flailing, and that kept me from sinking too deep in. Somehow, I managed to grab onto the edge of the pool, and instantly brought my other arm around to grab the edge as well. My claws dug in for dear life as I endured the brutal pain. The ordeal had left me without the strength to pull myself up, so I was forced to stay there, immersed in water up to my shoulders, eyes shut tight, heart racing to provide heat to my agonized body, listening to the hissing of steam as my body heat brought the water around me to a much higher temperature.

After a couple minutes, I opened my eyes and looked down, water splashing up to my nose as I did. It was less painful than the initial touch; maybe that was because of all the pain everywhere else. And I realized something else, as well: I was almost completely enveloped in water, looking right at it, but I didn't feel as scared as usual. In fact, I'd reached almost a kind of numb calm, like my brain had overloaded and couldn't create that reaction that it usually did.

Tentatively, I let go of the edge. Right away I sank in over my head again, and once again the panic started to well up. This time, though, the rational part of my brain kicked in and reminded me about the flailing. It was haphazard at first, but I pretty quickly figured out that moving around kept me up. It wasn't easy - my body was protesting against the stress with all its might, and moving in the water was an indescribably strange feeling, far different from air, almost like if a Psychic Pokémon had slowed my body down or something. I wouldn't be able to connect that experience to what I'd learned about water until well afterwards.

It was by trial and error that I figured out how to move in water where I couldn't stand. It could hardly be called swimming in any sense; it was more just me trying to push water in any haphazard way. It was the sensations, though, that really had me enthralled; what had first been blinding sharp pain, then dull throbbing pain, had receded, and replaced by this amazing kind of intense tingling in every scale, which would get a little stronger in whatever body part I moved. There was still pain, but it was a weird pain, a pain that actually felt kind of...well, good. Pleasant, even. It still seems weird to me even now, I'd never expected that I could actually enjoy being in water like that even if I hadn't been deathly scared of it. But it was true, the sensation was exhilarating, and it compelled me to stay in a while longer.

I don't know exactly how long I was in the pool. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes all told. As I doubt it would surprise you to learn, I had absolutely no natural swimming ability, so much of it was just trying to figure out how to get around. I eventually grasped the concept that steady movements were more effective than random flailing, which got me to the shallow end. At three feet, it was still plenty deep for me, but shallow enough that I could lay my feet on the tiles and be up to just under my jawline. It was here that I tested the concept of holding my breath and putting my head underwater. Difficult at first, the pain from my head made it a little tough to keep myself from exhaling, but after a few tries the shock was a lot lighter and I was able to stay under for about ten seconds. It was weird, having all that water rushing around my head; I had expected things to feel different, but more than that, they sounded different, too, the sound of my toe claws scraping on the tiles was way different from when they were on pavement above water. It was like I had discovered a completely alien world, where all the things that I had known and experienced for years were completely irrelevant.

I got out by means of the steps, which I had become aware of after realizing that the depth of the pool wasn't the same everywhere. I fel like a wreck when I got out, weary, woozy, and, most unfamiliar of all, cold. But when I finally sat up and looked at the pool again, I realized something.

I wanted to go back in.

I didn't, of course - I was far too exhausted to pull a stunt like that again so soon. But just the notion that I wanted to, that I wanted to experience that strange new world again, was uplifting. I wasn't scared anymore; I wouldn't be holding anyone else back because of my extreme aversion to water. In fact, I was tempted to say I loved it.

It took me a few minutes to realize my tail wasn't lit. I looked at it for a long time; I'd never actually seen what the end of my tail looked like when it wasn't shrouded in flame. I guess it didn't look especially foreign, it was a tail tip not unlike that of a lot of other Pokémon. But I noticed some small pores at the end which were emitting white smoke; it struck me that I was finally seeing where the flame came from. Kind of a weird existential moment, I mean, this isn't something a lot of my kind knows about. There's all sorts of legends about where the flames come from, but to actually see it as part of your body...well, it's hard to describe. I did learn a new trick from it, though. When I breathed a small flame on the smoke, it caught fire and jetted back down to my tail tip, setting it back alight. That was cool.

It was kind of a strange feeling as I went back to the hotel room. I hadn't gone all that far, but it felt like I had traversed worlds, that I'd left as one person and returned as someone completely different. I guess that was true, in a way. I wasn't the same person anymore; my trip into the water had changed me, a kind of rebirth I guess. Now instead of being scared of it, I couldn't get enough of it.

They call that hydrophilia. Coming from someone who knows both extremes, that one's a lot better.

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><p>Feel free to leave reviews. I do read them, even if I don't always respond to them.<p> 


	2. Pyromania

While reworking the previous story, I was struck with inspiration for some other stories. I have the kind of mind where ideas that interest me don't like to go away - they sit there and niggle, distracting me until I put them down in some fashion that ensures I won't forget them. Some ideas I just write down and then end up never using them; some lay dormant for a long time, then suddenly return with a vengeance. In this case, given that the idea was short one-shot stories, I decided to knock a couple out pretty much right away and see where it led.

This one features Grovyle, another one that I think is highly underrated. Man, pair him up with Charmeleon and you've got a buddy cop show right there - Charmeleon's the stiff, no-nonsense stoic and Grovyle's the wisecracking hothead with an axe to grind. Hey, it wouldn't be any worse than most of the garbage on TV already. Ah, well, many in another time...

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><p><strong>Pyromania<strong>

My trainer was going to be pissed.

Really, I should be listening to him, but the thing is, I don't think I can help it. There's just something in me that's not set right or something, and it causes me to act screwy. Maybe one of these days they'll figure out what it is and I won't be this way anymore. Though I don't know if I'd like that. It's hard to say.

What had I done that I knew would earn his wrath later? For most other Pokémon it would be a fairly mild crime; I'd swiped a lighter and snuck out in the middle of the night. Two things made this something different: first, the lighter in question was not my trainer's, but a stranger's, which was definitely a little bit higher on the no-no list. The second was what I was going to do with it when I snuck out.

Namely, light myself on fire.

Once I was outside, I was off like a shot. Getting out was really the hard part; once I was in the open, all it took was one Agility boost and I was flying through the woods with ease. We Grovyles are pretty renowned for our speed, so as you can imagine it didn't take long before I was out all by myself, well away from prying eyes. Once I had my space, I flicked the lighter, trying to get it to light. It was a rather difficult mechanism for a Pokémon, but I'd had plenty of experience with it and it took me only a few seconds to get that bright yellow flame dancing. I watched it for a bit, kind of mesmerized by the tiny bead of fire, like it was from a foreign world.

Then I brought it up to one of the leaves on my arm. Right up to the very end of it. I watched as the flame made contact, heating up the green foliage. Oh, yes, it was painful - those leaves are part of our bodies, and despite the fact that they grow back quickly, they do have a kind of nerve in them so we can kind of control them a little. And they also feel pain as well. Not as much as the rest of or bodies, but enough to smart. I didn't care. Actually, the pain was probably part of the reason I did it.

The lighter wasn't much, and it took a while to actually get a flame going on the leaf. It's not like the leaves off of trees, the leaves on my body are pretty hardy and burn for a while before being really damaged. So I could enjoy it for longer. Or so I thought.

"And just what are you doing?"

Grovyles are also known for jumping. And boy did I jump. I'm almost sure I brushed some of the lower-hanging branches. Turns out I wasn't as far from prying eyes as I'd thought. It was my trainer's Raichu who had caught me - most likely he'd followed me out almost right after I'd left. Now he was standing in front of me, arms folded, and despite the question he'd greeted me with I knew he knew exactly what I had been doing. This wasn't the first time he'd busted me.

"Put it out."

I did as he said - I may resist Electric attacks but this Raichu was way stronger than I was, I couldn't have lasted a minute against him. I snuffed the flame on my leaf with my hand, trying to get as much out of it as I could before it went away.

"Now hand it over." Usually he would ask where I got the fire this time, but I think judging from me being way out here he already had his suspicions. Maybe he caught wind of something earlier after I'd nicked it, too, I'll admit I'm not exactly the slyest guy around and kinda lousy at hiding things. I didn't see much point in trying to fight it, so I tossed him the lighter. He caught it and looked at me a lot like my trainer does when he catches me at that kind of stuff. "You're going to get our trainer in a lot of trouble, you know. You can't keep taking things that don't belong to you."

I nodded. Of course I understood this. It wasn't like that was what I was trying to do. It was just that I couldn't help it.

It's been going on for as long as I can remember. My trainer, his parents, their Pokémon, anyone who was ever in charge of me always had the same message: keep away from fire. And small wonder, it could be pretty nasty to someone my type. But for some reason I had trouble following that rule; if there was fire around I was almost certain to be there, danger or not. And more often than not, I ended up scorched to some degree, partly because of tempting fate and partly because I was kind of trying to.

On some level I always knew this was weird, that others of my kind or my type didn't have this kind of behavior and there was probably something a little screwy with me since I did. But it didn't change anything. They scolded me but they didn't really think much of it, they just thought I was too curious for my own good and more than a little klutzy, so they treated me and sent me on my way. That's how it was for a while.

When my trainer finally was ready to go travel on his own, he took a few of us with him, including myself. We had battles, as is the usual, and it was through this that I encountered something much more thrilling than the occasional burning thing: battles against Fire-type Pokémon. I didn't have any problem listening to my trainer under most circumstances, but I'll admit I tended to stop listening when he wanted to call me back when a Fire-type came out. Usually I'd just charge in headlong before he could return me to my ball, which was a lot more reckless than I was with other opponents. Every now and then I actually managed to snag a victory, sometimes just because they were too surprised to react in time, but more often I just got my ass torched.

And I loved it. Call me crazy - I probably am. But just the intensity, the sensation of being lit up like that, it's incomparable. It's just so overwhelming that it sends me into kind of a weird euphoria. Oh, yeah, it hurts like hell, don't get me wrong, but weirdly enough, the pain actually kind of makes it even better. It adds that extra something that really completes it.

At first I did this pretty often, whenever I had the chance. That was probably my mistake, because my trainer started to really notice the pattern and suspect that something was up. I remember him taking me to get checked out after one of those escapades and talking to the nurse about what he I was doing. The nurse mentioned something called "pyromania," which one of my teammates said was some kind of obsession with fire. Which I don't think really fits quite exactly - I'm not really obsessed with fire, just its effects on me.

Whatever the case, after that there were some pretty big changes. I wasn't allowed to fight Fire-types anymore; he was very cautious about which foes he brought me out against, and actually it felt like he avoided trainers who were more likely to have Fire-types in the first place. At first I was disappointed but dealt with it, since I figured he just wanted to make sure I didn't hurt myself too badly. But then it started eating at me. I needed to feel those flames again.

That's why I started stealing the lighters. Most people don't know they're missing until long after I've gotten away, and usually they just think they've misplaced them or something. The flames are pitiful compared to even a newborn Fire-type Pokémon, but by the time I get to the point of taking one I'm just desperate for anything. I'd never been able to convince any of my comrades to roast me, and most of them thought I was completely cracked. Which, again, not entirely off base. So the lighters are the last resort. Of course, I can never hold on to them for long, because my trainer checks me often and the others are usually watching me. Like Raichu was tonight.

When we got back everything was still dark. I didn't know if he was going to tell our trainer about tonight or not. I hoped not; sometimes Raichu would go easy on me, since he kind of gets that it's not something I can completely help. But he didn't always because he didn't want to make it easier for me to keep doing what I was doing. I had a feeling this was going to probably be one of the latter cases, but he wouldn't say.

Still, I'd be lying if I said I regretted it. I hadn't gotten much burn, but it was enough to at least keep me from going round the bend for a while. Maybe one of these days my trainer will catch a Fire-type Pokémon just psychotic enough to indulge me every once in a while. Who knows? Until then, though, I really don't know what I'm going to do. Probably steal some more lighters, unless I can find something else I can easily conceal.

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><p>Sometimes we have what other people would call problems. And those other people want us to work through them when we don't know how to, and aren't even sure if we want to. The problem is always trying to figure out where the truth lies. Are our lives diminished by that which affects us? Or do they call it a problem because it's not the normal they feel comfortable with? If the answer lies in between, that just makes it more complicated.<p>

If you can't relate, thank your good fortune. If you can, my condolences to you. Hopefully the answers come soon. Until next time...


	3. Definition

This one was a little different, with two perspectives rather than one. I realize the whole "Zangoose/Seviper feud" idea isn't exactly new and exciting, but that's why I was trying to go a slightly different direction with it. Since it had to do with both of them, I tried to fit in two variations on the same theme. First-person isn't my strong suit, and I'm fairly sure the two are going to read pretty similarly; I may have gotten enough of an undertone to make them marginally distinct, but it's hard for me to tell.

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><p><strong>Definition<strong>

Let me start off by saying that I know it's not absolutely unheard of for a Zangoose and a Seviper to coexist. Just so no one makes the mistake of thinking I've got some kind of tunnel vision or something when it comes to the matter. Those cases, though, they're almost always cases of trainers pairing them together and forcing them to work together. Even a blood feud as deep as ours can be trained away, and once you've got them working together, they're as reliable a pair as any.

In the wild, it's a whole different story. I can count on one paw the number of instances I've heard of Zangoose and Seviper interacting peacefully with each other. Simply put, without a trainer's influence, we don't get along and putting the two together is just a recipe for disaster.

I guess that makes me one of the strange ones. I share my den with a Seviper. Now, let it be clear, I don't particularly like Seviper in general, or this one in particular either. I wouldn't really even call us friends, just cohabitants. So I imagine it's a mystery to you as to why I'm doing this. I know it is to others of my kind, so don't worry, it's not like this is the first time I've had people wondering about me. The answer isn't a simple one, and I can't guarantee you'll really understand it once I've gotten through it, but I'll give it a shot.

What's the first thing you think of when you think of Zangoose? If you're anything like most of the humans I've met, it's that we hate Seviper. And vice-versa if you ask about Seviper. Really, even if they've had a lot of experience with either of us, hack, even if they're a trainer who's worked with one for a long time, that's what comes first.

I'm certainly not denying the fact. Goodness, no. Zangoose clans in the wild, they always live near Seviper clans; it's perhaps an irony of nature that we're so well-adapted to similar habitats. And it's always the same thing with our clans, the most important thing is to destroy any Seviper we come across. The hate is there, and it is strong. Seeing a full-on brawl between a large group of Zangoose and Seviper, it's really something even if you're not big on our blood feud. You will never see a more vicious and feral swarm in all your life. You never want to get close, it could cost you your life. There is no discretion, there is no caution; if you're in the way, either one will go right through you, not caring about your health or safety.

So, yeah, no love lost between us. And that's basically what life is like in the clans; everything revolves around the opposition, and your status is primarily defined by your battle history only with those opponents. I once knew a Zangoose who single-handedly forced a Rhyperior to submit to him and beg for mercy, but he wasn't highly respected in any way because he had a fairly nondescript record against Seviper. Not because he couldn't beat them, but because he didn't find them enough of a real challenge. And that's the truth; there are lots of Pokémon tougher for us to deal with than each other. Ghost-types would be hell for any one of us Zangoose, and Seviper would be virtually fangless against any Steel-type. But that doesn't matter to the clans; all that matters is each other.

And when it gets down to it, that's the part that started eating at me. As I said, I'm no real friend to the Seviper, and I never have been. But it wasn't about friendship, no, the reasons are more internal. See, I asked myself the critical question: what happens if we beat all the Seviper?

You may wonder how someone with such a historical in-bred antagonism could be so foggy on the question of what happens once they've actually succeeded in terminating that which they so tirelessly fight against. And, well, I would sympathize, because I'm kinda wondering the same thing myself. It wasn't something that came to me immediately, it was several years and several fights and kills before the thought ever occurred to me. Of course, when it did, it hit like an Aggron.

I mean, think about it. Our entire lives revolve around our little mutual vendetta. So, when one half of that is gone, what does that mean for the other half? How does it change our lives? Where do we go from there?

I mean, maybe it's hard to conceptualize because "gone" is a tricky designation. After all, there is a Pokémon which acts as a living repository of the DNA of every single species of Pokémon that has ever lived. And these things are literally everywhere. Heck, there are Dittos that live amongst wild Pokémon as if they are that Pokémon, never revealing that they're actually Dittos. If they wanted, they could recreate any species at any time. Why they don't is a mystery for the ages, and one I'm not going to even take a stab at. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a Ditto.

But that aside, we could conceivably wipe out the Seviper entirely, even if only temporarily. And yeah, they could potentially do the same to us. And no one thinks about that. No on ever asks what's going to happen if we actually win, if we actually eliminate the group that we've pretty much dedicated our entire existence to eliminating.

Predictably, when I asked these questions to my clan mates, they had no clue. Answers ranged from nonexistent to incoherent, and often I ended up with the brush-off. And of course this bothered me. How could they not have some idea? Wasn't this part of our lives? You would think somewhere along the line they'd figure out the endgame, but apparently not.

I didn't stop there; for all I could have known this was a peculiarity to my clan. But extending the same questions to others yielded the same results. That's when it really began to sink in that we really have no idea what we are, aside from enemies of Seviper. That's pretty much how we've defined ourselves. We have nothing else.

Yeah, it's really incredibly depressing to come to that kind of conclusion. It's basically an admission that we don't really mean anything in the grander scheme. We're basically a side story, something that will get wrapped up eventually and then we'll never be mentioned again. I can't think of anyone who wants that. But it's a hard thing to accept, and that's probably why no one wanted to listen to me when I brought it up to my clan. They thought I was trying to defend the Seviper or something. Maybe it's one of those things that you can't just hear from someone else, you have to actually arrive at it on your own. I don't really know.

Anyway, that's the big reason I'm doing what I'm doing. I couldn't stomach the idea that we were basically meaningless. I want to at least try to have some sort of impact that means something in the greater scheme. Maybe it won't happen, but if it doesn't, I wouldn't want it to be because I stuck around in a circle that made it impossible. Living with a Seviper is kind of the first step. Even if I'm not terribly fond of them and the feeling is mutual, just simple coexistence breaks that trend of just being defined as enemies of Seviper. If I can make a new definition, maybe I can bring others in, and we'll amount to something more in the long run. At least, that's what I hope.

##########

I think the only reason the other Seviper haven't ostracized me completely is because they're too confused by my actions. I've tried to explain, but they don't get it. I guess I can't blame them too much, though. After all, it's something that doesn't align with their views on the world, and even if they could get past that, ours is a rather strange case.

In essence, our reluctant partnership is an effort to separate us.

Groups can be bound together by many things. A common origin, a shared experience, feelings between them that tie their destinies together. Usually those feelings are such things as love or kinship or just pure dedication, but hatred is as much a binding force as any of those. And that's what binds together the Zangoose and Seviper, the mutual hatred that we have had for longer than anyone is capable of determining.

Seviper clans are very similar to Zangoose clans in many ways. The most surprising thing to both of us was finding out how eerily similar each of us were to the other. Somehow, despite our blood pitting us against each other, we're practically mirror images; we live in the same areas, we organize ourselves in the same ways, and our attitudes, both towards each other and towards life in general, are practically identical. And while I haven't heard this acknowledged by any of my kind, word from the world of trainers is that we can sire each other's children. Now _that_ would be a dysfunctional family.

Of course, if you tried to tell any of this to one of my kind, we would sooner rip you to shreds than listen. It doesn't matter that we wouldn't be able to come up with any really crucial ways that we're different, just clinging to the idea is what matters to us. Don't break the illusion, that's the only rule of any importance.

That's what happened to me. I broke the illusion, and now I can't get it back. Not just about the lack of differences between us, but also how much we actually mean to each other. We act as though it would be the greatest thing in the world to be rid of the Zangoose, but in reality, the way we live our lives is entirely reliant upon them. And the same is true for them.

We are joined together. Our mutual hatred is the tie that binds us. And that means if one of us dies out, both of us do.

Having them be the central fixtures of our lives means everything has revolved around them. When they're gone, well, what's left? We go from being enemies of Zangoose to...well, just being. And just being is the last step to not-being. Once there's no good reason for us to be around, we'll go quickly, because there'll be nothing holding us together, nothing for us to strive for. Not even life. They way we've lived, we've lived to destroy Zangoose.

It wouldn't even really require us to be the winners. One of us could be laid low by a plague that only infects their type, or we could have a natural disaster set upon us that one group is more likely to die from. Who knows. What it would mean is that we've lost our competition, our reason for our existence, without really doing anything ourselves. Not only would it be unfulfilling, it would still leave that void of purpose that would eventually be our downfall.

My clan wouldn't buy this when I told them, but that's to be expected; no one wants to be painfully reminded of their own mortality, much less be told that they're inviting it by doing what they were born to do. As you might expect, I didn't end up being a popular Seviper. More than a few times I was told to forget it and go back to my life. And really, I tried to a couple times. But it never took. You can't just forget about something like that. It's like being told you've got a deadly plague, or that you've been struck with a poison that's going to slowly kill you (something especially familiar with my kind, though on the giving end rather than the receiving end).

It was kind of just by chance that I happened upon a Zangoose who had fallen into similar realizations. There aren't many meetings between the two species that don't result in immediate bloodshed, but this was one of those rare occurrences. It still wasn't overly friendly, but we were both capable of realizing that we had to set that aside for the time being. We talked for a long time. It helped both of us get a better idea of the problems we had and how we had to tackle them.

Living together...well, that wasn't something either of us were exactly excited about. But it was still a kind of natural step. I mean, let's face it, neither of our clans were receptive to how we felt, and in fact were somewhat hostile. We could only really confide in each other and discuss our worries and ideas with each other. Plus, being in each other's presence would help start to prove that we could be more than just those two warring Pokémon species, and that our hatred wasn't the only thing that could define us.

Like I said before, my choices are completely beyond the understanding of the other Seviper. It just doesn't make sense to them that I'd willingly share space with one of our mortal enemies. I don't fault them for it; it's hard to watch someone go against their inborn drives for something that isn't easy to grasp. They don't get that this is kind of the point. It's an effort to break that hatred, to not make us mortal enemies, so that we aren't bound to each other's fates and don't have to place our lives on their continued survival.

It's an odd catch-22; we can't achieve our ultimate goal and survive without breaking those ties that bind us, but because it's our hatred that binds us, breaking it would likely lead to us never achieving our ultimate goal. But the choice isn't difficult for me; if continued survival means breaking off the feud with the Zangoose, well, I sure as hell am willing to make that sacrifice. We stand to lose a lot more by just letting it continue.

* * *

><p>I wonder sometimes whether these stories sound authentic. That may be a strange concern to have given the subject matter, but I'm not talking about literal realism or anything like that. I mean more like that the undertones aren't artificial, like they would truly be thought or spoken by the characters in question. It's kind of difficult for me to judge because I'm the one writing them and I have a very difficult time entering the perspective of a character without putting myself into it.<p>

I guess another question is whether it can be interesting even if it's not relatable. These are issues that are kind of predicated in the traits and characteristics of fictional and fantastic creatures, and I wonder if that might make them less compelling because it can't really establish a personal connection with the reader. Maybe the format helps, since it's kind of writing as the character talking to the reader, but again it's hard for me to judge.

Maybe I'm putting too much thought into it, considering the medium I'm working with. I'm not trying to disparage fanfiction or its writers - I'm right there, obviously - but from what I can tell its consumers aren't expecting professional work, which is probably all the better for me since it's well out of my league. But I don't want to be turning people away, either.

Feel free to leave a review or comment on this or anything else. And keep in mind, I write up these short stories when inspiration strikes, and I won't be averse to you supplying the hammer if you have what you think is an interesting idea. I can't make any promises, but I will give it thought.


	4. Endurance

This story originally starred a different Pokémon, which I ended up changing not because I didn't like the choice but because I appropriated it for a different snapshot that's a little more fitting to it. So if there's any obvious oversights, let me know so I can fix them. The other story...well, it's not finished yet, and I probably won't post it right away even when it is. But at some point it'll be out there.

I've got a little soft spot in my heart for the middle evolutions (can you tell?). They seem like the forgotten ones. I mean, your base evolutions are generally the cute ones that draw the most attention from the kinds of people who are into that sort of thing, while your final evolutions are the big tough brawlers that everyone uses for combat because they're built for it. The middle evos are like teenagers - everyone just prefers to forget about them because they're more trouble than they're worth. Well, I'm a fan, at least of some. So when I found out about Sandile and its evolutions, it was pretty much a shoe-in that I'd like Krokorok.

This story was a little strange to write, since I was going for a little lighter feel yet at the same time knew I was going to be putting in this section that was going to be my best effort at surreal. There's a little bit of stylistic dissonance in there. I hope it works anyway.

* * *

><p><strong>Endurance<strong>

Friends can be a very bad influence. Take myself and my buddies for example, we're the cause of a lot more of the pain and suffering we go through than all the battles we've ever fought combined. It's not malicious or anything, it's just kind of the way we are.

I'm a Krokorok, and my friends are a Sandslash and Drillbur. No names, I don't want to embarrass anyone. Anyway, the three of us have a lot of fun together, but I'd be lying if I said we weren't competitive, too. We're always trying to outdo each other and push each other into doing things that are...well, I'll put it lightly and say they're inadvisable. You know, the kind of stuff that has a "don't try this at home" disclaimer.

It wasn't long ago that I got goaded into a really bad one. To be fair, I'm pretty much the idiot here because I let my pride get the better of me. Yeah, I just had to say those magic words to them:

"I'm the strongest of all of us. I can take on anything you throw at me."

Because, you know, apparently I hadn't filled my stupid quota for the month or something. I swear to you, I usually know better than to go spouting off like that, and especially to those two, who seriously must lie in wait with ideas to torment me. As soon as I said it, they issued a challenge, and because I was still in mode stupid, I accepted.

The challenge: sit in a pool of ice water for an hour.

Now, you don't have to go lecturing me about the choice I made here. I'm perfectly aware of how bad a choice that was. Obviously, it was tailored to my weaknesses, both ice and water. Maybe if I'd been one of those types, I'd have done all right. And it did occur to me to have one of my trainer's Water-types hit me with Soak before going through with this stunt, but that would be cheating and my pride refused to let me seriously consider it. Stupid pride.

The details were settled quickly - yeah, you just try to tell me they hadn't been sitting on this for ages. We were flown to a northern region, way away from the little ranch our trainer keeps us at while not taking us along on a challenge. Along for the ride (actually, he was the ride) was his Charizard, who had been roped in to transport us there and perform vital rewarming after I either won or lost. I mean, we can be stupid, but we're not _that_ stupid; none of us is going to knowingly put one of the others in that kind of danger without someone on hand to take care of us. He wanted me to make sure I noted that he didn't approve of any of this, but if we were going to do it, and we were going to do it regardless of his opinion, he figured someone responsible should be there to make sure it didn't turn into a catastrophe. Such a pal.

Anyway, once we got to the location, Charizard set up the warming tent and stayed inside that while Sandslash and Drillbur fashioned a little ice and water pool for me. Rather than using an existing water source, they made a little chamber in the ground and filled it up to about the level of my neck as I was sitting down. It was ready far too quickly for my tastes, and I swear I have never seen Sandslash grinning so widely in my entire life.

"Well, you ready, bucko?"

I could've smacked him over the head, but I managed to keep just enough restraint for that. I may have made a gesture that should not be repeated, though. Not that that fazed him any. I made my way to the water pit. It wasn't deep in the ground, so I could easily be pulled out, or easily jump out if I wimped out early enough that I could still move.

"And no pansying your way in, either!" I heard Drillbur say with an evil chuckle. "The timer doesn't start until you get in all the way!"

They were doing everything they could to make this harder. "I know, I know. Now shut up."

I decided there was no point in delaying it; I was going to be in that water at some point, and I figured I might last longer if I didn't get a head start on the torment. So as soon as I was poised over the pit, I dropped myself in.

That...MAY have been a mistake. While it probably did help ensure that I didn't drag it out before getting the timer started, it also ensured that my initial reaction was holycrapfreakingmotherofPAIN. All the way throughout my body, too - my head was spared the splash but it felt the ache just as badly somehow. I'm fairly sure I cussed like a jilted Nidoqueen (Poison types always have the foulest mouths in every sense of the word), which perfectly delighted my buddies. Someone told me that that's actually supposed to help with pain. Whatever. I sure as hell didn't feel any better. Maybe there was just too much pain or something.

Well, after the initial shock, it was just the slightest bit better. Not much, mind you; I was still pretty much in constant throbbing agony and I'd started shivering almost instantly, which didn't really help all that much. I started to really wish I'd brought something to grab onto and hold tight to try to help endure everything. Sandslash and Drillbur taunted me every now and then, but I was really too distracted by the pain to make much sense of what they were saying. Really, they were kind of bad at it if they couldn't even be memorable. My kind's good at taunting, it's kind of how we get our rep as tough guys.

I guess I'm getting a little distracted from the story. Well, I mean, it wasn't terribly interesting in the early stages, at least from my standpoint. I wasn't really able to keep track of how long I was in there while I was in there, it was just too hard to focus on that. I was mainly just trying to deal with the pain and the shivering. Cold water has this annoying effect where the pain's really sharp at first, then dulls down, but as it starts numbing you it gets sharp and stabby again. It was rotten when I was going through that phase, it would have been bad enough just on an arm or leg or something, but this was happening all over my body. I think I was making some very pitiful moans or something like that, I'm not really entirely sure. I also wasn't sure exactly how Sandslash and Drillbur were responding at this point, but I'm pretty sure it was still unmitigated glee.

At some point along the line, though, something very strange began to happen. It came on kind of slowly, but it was like my body just completely stopped responding to the cold, or to anything. I felt like I couldn't move, but I also couldn't feel any pain. It's not like being paralyzed or frozen in a battle situation, no, this was a lot purer, just like everything just completely left my body. Even my head, which wasn't submerged, I stopped feeling anything there, too. All my senses were going loopy. I couldn't see straight, all the sounds were just garbled noise. It seemed like everything was getting distant, like I had entered a whole other world.

It was weird, like I wasn't with myself anymore. It put me in a kind of weird zen state, or at least that's how a Psychic Pokémon I asked about it put it. Weird, I always thought zen was a code word for "I don't want to pay attention to you right now so I'm going to ignore you while pretending to do something deep and meaningful." Apparently zen actually means something. Go figure. I'm not really for that Psychic stuff, which probably doesn't surprise you.

Anyway, yeah, it was really surreal. It was kind of like, I dunno, I was in a hollow rock, just seeing stars all around and not really...well, being, I guess. Kind of a state of un-ness. It was throwing a bunch of questions at me - who am I? What am I? Why am I? Don't ask me, my brain was shutting down, I couldn't figure out why I was thinking these things either. It's kind of hard to ponder the nature of existence and such when you're experiencing a major case of hypothermia.

I gotta say, though, it was the only part of this whole ordeal that I actually enjoyed. I mean, there was just something about it that was kind of...freeing, I guess. Like I didn't have any worries or stresses, like I was galaxies away from my problems. Like there wasn't any reason for anything to bother me because there wasn't really a me. It doesn't make a lot of sense even now, but I think it's just something that only really means anything when you're experiencing it. I'd love to have another experience like it...well, that is, without having to sit in freezing-ass water for far longer than is healthy.

It couldn't last. Or, rather, I couldn't. I wasn't really aware of anything back on the real world between when I fell into that state and when I woke up in the heating tent, completely enveloped in Charizard. I could almost hear him thinking "what an idiot" and truth be told he would have been perfectly correct. My entire body still ached, but it wasn't as bad as being in the water.

"Hey, welcome back!" Sandslash and Drillbur were there too, looking as relieved as they could while still being infuriatingly smug. "About time you rejoined us here, we were starting to think you'd checked out on us!"

"Would've been your fault," I mumbled back. "How long?"

"27 minutes, 48 seconds," Drillbur announced proudly. Damn, not even halfway. Still better than I expected, and probably than they expected, but that didn't translate to challenge complete.

"Hah! That wasn't even close!" Sandslash was positively giddy. "So much for the best! Betcha you'll think twice next time before going around bragging you're better than us!"

I'd just been undermined by my own unwitting arrogance, played right into a trap that had been laid for me for ages, endured two of my worst weaknesses for far longer than ever advised, and had some kind of dream trip as a result of my brain checking out on me. Yet, in the end, I think it was worth it all just to have them hand me my revenge on a silver platter. Now it was me starting to grin like a madman.

"I don't know about that...seems to me that my time of 27:48 still beats out both of your times of exactly zero. You want to say you're better than I am, you're gonna have to jump in yourselves and beat that time."

Their smiles dropped like a Golem rolling off a cliff, an inversion of my own expression as they realized the impact of those words. I could hear Charizard let out a grumbling sigh of irritation, knowing that I wouldn't be the only victim of our utter lack of common sense. I didn't care. What is it they say? Revenge is a dish best served cold? I think in this case, it was only fitting.

* * *

><p>For the record, I've never tried sitting in icy water for a long time, but I think it'd be more liable to kill me than give me any strange experience like that. I urge you not to try this at home unless you have your own Charizard ready to attend to you at any moment.<p> 


	5. Maturity

This story features a Nidoking, a Pokémon I've always liked not just because it looks cool, but also because it's so versatile in the game. I enjoy having versatility because I like being able to adjust to whatever challenges come my way. It's a shame that it's all but impossible to do in real life, so I have to take it where I can.

The concept of evolution in the Pokémon sense...well, it's one of the many things in the Pokémon world which inspires a lot of questions when you look at it more closely. This is just my own take on it, I imagine others might have far different perceptions of the real implications.

* * *

><p><strong>Maturity<strong>

I've always held kind of an envy for human growth cycles. It's basically a continuous and gradual shift, changes that occur slowly enough that they're easy to adjust to. And it's consistent; it doesn't change a lot between individuals. I'm sure you'd probably disagree, but from my perspective it seems so simple and hassle-free.

It's so much different with Pokémon. Evolution is part of the natural course of events for us; at certain points in our lives, many of us will change our appearances drastically, and with the new bodies comes a host of physical differences which we pretty much have to adjust to on the fly. It may not look it, but it is generally fairly uncomfortable; your body becomes something it has no experience with, and you don't get any training period to get ready for it. Sure, we get stronger as a result, but knowing how to use that strength isn't part of the package.

And evolution itself is notoriously inconsistent. In the natural order of things, it would occur at pretty set periods in our lives, but that's usually only the case in very strict circumstances. Evolution can be accelerated - any trainer knows this, the more a Pokémon battles the faster it evolves. That's because fighting speeds the processes that lead to our evolution; basically, it tricks our bodies into thinking they're aging faster than they are. It's fortunate for us that there aren't any real detrimental effects because of it. Sure, a young Pokémon may be growing into an adult body before it really has an adult mind, but it's not really that much of an issue; a Pokémon under a trainer already has an accelerated maturity curve and often the bond of training further settles any problems associated with that, and most Pokémon would gladly trade time in those preparatory stages for a body that they knew wasn't going to give them any more unpleasant surprises.

Evolution can be restrained, too. Trainers know the time-honored technique of startling a Pokémon out of evolution, but in the wild it tends not to be quite so easy. A Pokémon often has to work to keep from evolving before they're ready, and for some being ready can be quite a long time. And a Pokémon that's secluded and doesn't get out and experience life grows much more slowly, constraining its evolution. This is something that happens not infrequently when a Pokémon really isn't mentally ready to evolve; they become reclusive hermits, ignoring the outside world just so they don't have to experience that change. Unfortunately, it usually doesn't help them prepare for the evolution, meaning they can stay like that for their entire lives if someone doesn't force them out.

But there's a certain subset of Pokémon for which the process of evolution is even more unusual. That's the subset that evolve using stones or other objects, who basically have some measure of control over their evolution.

Take, for example, my kin, the Nido families. From Nidoran to Nidorino or Nidorina, it's a process much like any other Pokémon, the product of natural aging and experience. But from there to Nidoking or Nidoqueen, our evolution is reliant on a catalyst, a Moon Stone. And it can happen literally any time after we reach that middle stage. Basically, once we've matured enough, we can evolve at any time we wish, just by having a Moon Stone handy. If you're in a den in the wild, there's generally no question of this; trained Nidos tend to need to rely on their trainers having access to them, but sometimes they wander off on their own to find them. Either way, there's still an element of personal control.

As you might imagine, there are some benefits and drawbacks to evolving from the middle to the final stage. Both stages grow in different ways and gain different natural techniques for battle, of which either group may be better suited for particular situations or environments. But even beyond that, Nidorinos and Nidorinas are basically a period of adolescence, a time where growth and experience is encouraged, freedom is greatly increased, and responsibility is pretty minimal. Their behavior and personalities reflect that; they're usually much wilder, more reckless and antagonistic, more carefree and self-centered. Nidokings and Nidoqueens, on the other hand, a lot more is expected of them. They're the adult, the ones in charge, and they're expected to have the maturity to keep control of themselves and others. Not that they can't be a little wild and rough, especially the Nidokings, for whom some bravado and tough attitude are rather prized by trainers. But they also have that added responsibility, and their bodies experience different influences which result in different behavior and personality.

So for us, there's a few different approaches to evolution. It's certainly not uncommon for a Nidorino or Nidorina to take that evolution almost right away. The big benefit of that is that you only have to spend time getting used to one new body rather than two. Sure, it does result in the burden of expectations on some who might not be mentally ready for them, but the changes in their body can help them cope with that. Other Nidorinos and Nidorinas prefer to wait, experiencing some of that mental growth before they take their last big physical step. Fairly common where learning some of what they're only capable of learning in those stages can be very advantageous for survival, but not exactly rare elsewhere, either.

I was a little different. I was one of those far less common Nidorinos who didn't want to evolve at all.

There may be a number of reasons a Nidorino or Nidorina might reject evolution entirely. I've heard those abused by angry Nidokings or Nidoqueens have their minds set against becoming one of them because they're afraid they'll do the same thing to others. Some don't want to go through that physical change again, and if they don't have to they avoid it as long as possible, which can be their whole lives. Some don't like the personality changes that come with it. Me, I was opposed to the idea of having that added responsibility. To put it simply, being an adolescent was fun, and the idea of becoming a Nidoking who had things he had to care about and be worried about was just repellent. I wasn't the only one I've known with that kind of attitude, but I think that tends to be a less common position than the others.

Regardless of the reasons, very few Nidos stick with it their whole lives. I was no exception there; I became a Nidoking in time as well. It was certainly something I had intended to stick with, as I'm sure many with the mindset initially do. And for most, it's just time that softens their positions. But not with me. I had a very different path. I evolved, not because I wanted to, but because of someone very important to me.

I was captured about a year and a half after I became a Nidorino. By that time, the number of friends and family my age who were still Nidorinos had dwindled to a pretty small number, and I was getting some pressure to join in. It fell on deaf ears; I didn't have to care about anything, and I didn't want to care about anything, and becoming a Nidoking would force me to. The choice was easy for me.

To be honest, I didn't exactly fight hard against being captured. It's not really a mysterious phenomenon among Pokémon, and hardly any different than just leaving home for good, which most Pokémon do at some point in their lives anyway. And trained Pokémon seem to have a pretty good life for the most part. There are some who don't like the idea of being kept, and I guess I don't blame them for it, there's a few things about the wild that are alluring. But I liked the idea, and I also was eager to get away from the pressure of my peers to evolve. So I put up enough of a struggle to make sure I was getting a solid trainer, and when I was satisfied I let her catch me.

Of course, she was pretty eager to get me to evolve at first, too. This was about as surprising as finding out that a Charmander isn't fond of water; Nidokings are stronger and more versatile in combat, so it was small wonder that trainers preferred them. I made my position very clear from the start, though, I was not going to evolve for anything. She tried a few times but eventually stopped putting pressure on me, perhaps thinking I'd come around on my own. I had no intention of doing that, but I wasn't going to let her think that if I could avoid it, so I went along with it.

It was a different life from back home. There were some tough spots, but I had no regrets overall. However, I won't say it didn't start off rocky with the others on the team. My attitude didn't endear myself to them. They were more experienced than I was, and I think they thought early on that I would adjust to be more like them pretty quickly. When I didn't, they started getting pretty testy. Naturally, being the Nidorino I was, I was pretty cocky, reckless, wild, and didn't accept the idea that I had any responsibility. Heck, wasn't that part of the reason I had let myself get captured in the first place? So, yeah, they weren't overly happy about that.

Six or seven months passed, me sticking in the team and fighting and just overall thinking that this was the life. I got pretty endeared to my trainer, too. She was a nice girl, very caring with all her Pokémon, and she had a good mind for battle, too. I'd gotten a good one, and I was really happy about that. And at some point I realized I wanted her to be happy with me, too. And I thought I was doing a good job on that front.

Well, I was wrong. I found that out when we were going through some forest and she had just switched out one of her Pokémon to be better suited for the wild Pokémon we might encounter there. For some reason, my teammates were ticked off, and I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't until we stopped to rest for the night that I found out.

I was trying to chat with her Fearow. This guy was far from the most pleasant Pokémon I'd ever met, but he was pretty personable with and well-liked by the others and I wanted to be in his good graces as well. So I was trying to chat him up, jus give a little small talk to endear myself to him. I tell you, it's not easy to give a guy the stink-eye and cold shoulder at the same time, but somehow he did it. He was just making it very clear that he wanted me to buzz off. And I was kind of irritated with that. I mean, I hadn't been nasty to him, at least not any more than any of the others had been when they were in bad moods. I thought it was unfair that I was getting such a cruddy reception, and I let him know it.

He almost exploded like an Electrode. It took a minute for our trainer to get him under control, but he made sure he had his say: that I hadn't been pulling my weight, that I irritated everyone with my immaturity, that I wasn't nearly as capable as any of the others and didn't act like I cared, and that he had been looking forward to me being switched out and that I was only still on the team because I had a favorable type against the Pokémon in the forest. Each accusation was like a psychic dagger, piercing me in the worst way.

Our trainer was clueless about what was actually being said, though she could tell Fearow had said something that bothered me. She seemed unsure what to do, but Fearow had gone back to treating me like I wasn't there, and I didn't want to start anything up again, so when she asked I acted like I was fine. Of course, I wasn't; what Fearow had said was really ringing in my head, and the worst part was that absolutely no one was coming to my defense. Their silence said as much as anything: they felt the same way, but just weren't quite blunt enough to come out with it like Fearow had.

The rest of the night wasn't much fun for me. Now that the cloud had been let loose there was no escaping it. Fearow pretended I wasn't there, the others didn't talk to me because they knew full well it would end up coming back to that, and I was pretty much mute and distant the whole time. She knew something was up, she could tell there was tension between us, and though she didn't know what exactly had them roiled at me she still figured it was eating me up. Before she went to sleep she took me aside and said to me that, regardless of how the others felt, she still cared about me and wanted me to be happy to be with her, and that I didn't have to be afraid that I'd be let go because of them.

I think that was really the breaking point for me. That was the moment that everything struck home. I had really grown to care about her, to the point that I wanted to prove myself to her and wanted her to be happy that I was there and fighting on her side. And yet, here I was, not fighting to my best potential, holding her back and causing tension with all the rest of her Pokémon. She had taken me in, kept me on her team even despite my refusal to evolve which she had probably been counting on right away, cared for me when I was hurt and given me endless praise and support, and what had I done in return? Not a hell of a lot. I sure hadn't made all her trouble worth her while.

All this time I had remained a Nidorino because I wanted to avoid responsibility. Turns out, I had missed the first rule of responsibility: often it finds you before you find it. All I was doing now was failing to meet it. So, at that point, the decision was an easy one. I knew she had a Moon Stone - after all, she hadn't been able to use it on me before. So, late that night when everyone else was sleeping, I fished it out of her bag and made the transition. There were no questions or doubt left in my head about it; after all, at this point I felt it was what I had to do in order to make things right to my trainer, and that was the only thing that mattered.

Of course she was shocked when she woke up that morning and found me very different from how I had been when she went to sleep. She was immediately concerned, thinking I had done something drastic and irrevocable out of sadness or despair, clearly remembering how hard I had fought against it the first time. One of those times I wished I could talk to her in a way she could easily understand, just to assure her that wasn't the case; I think I managed to eventually get that across to her pretty well, at least well enough to relieve her and make her know it wasn't anything she did wrong.

What did surprise me was how the others reacted; they were all pretty shocked and possibly even more wary than the previous night. I don't think they expected what Fearow said to actually sink in and drive me to that extent. I mean, it's a serious step to take, evolving, especially when you've been so adamantly against it before. Maybe they thought I was just going to stew about it or hate them all for pushing me to this. Fearow especially looked like he wanted to disappear, at least until I had reassured our trainer that everything was fine.

Thing warmed up pretty quickly. Over the next few days, I was taught new techniques for battle, and got used to my physical and mental changes. The improvement in my battle was such that I was startled at how badly I had been doing before, although how much of that was just attributable to the new techniques was hard to place. It was a lot easier to pinpoint how much impact the evolution had on my relationship with the rest of the team. They treated me with kid gloves for a while until they were comfortable that there weren't any hard feelings, and when I managed to show that I wasn't going to hold them back, they were a lot more friendly overall. Even Fearow, who took longer to open up because of what he would tell me later was lingering guilt over what he'd said.

And I couldn't have been happier with how everything turned out. I was finally holding my own where I had been falling short, and I was doing justice to a trainer who had done so much for me. Now I really understood what other trained Pokémon had told me when I was younger about the bond between a trainer and a Pokémon. It's hard to understand until you actually have it. It means so much to me to be able to make her proud of me, and I'm intent on getting even better so I can keep that up.

In hindsight, maybe things would have been better from the start if I'd evolved right away. But my hindsight has the benefit of a more mature and thoughtful brain than my Nidorino self; I doubt I ever would have seen it then. And, just like the other Nidos who were initially unwilling, in the end I'm very glad I made the decision to complete my growth and evolution. Because, like them, I learned that it's not the Nidoking that makes the maturity, but the maturity that makes the Nidoking.

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><p>Where I come up with these concepts, I may never know. My brain is a hurricane, and every now and then something gets flung out that you wouldn't expect to be in there. I have to latch onto those snippets or they may be gone for good.<p>

The next time the hurricane gives something up, I'll see you again. If you have a thought of your own, throw it into the hurricane. If it has the right weight it may find its trajectory quickly. I think I've stretched this metaphor thin enough, so I'll be going now.


	6. Sensitivity

It's been a while since I did one of these. But I was struck with inspiration a couple days ago and just had to knock this one out.

The idea for this one came from a PokéDex entry from Gold (which is apparently also present in Heart Gold, so people won't have to scramble back to their Game Boy Color systems to verify it) about Rhydon's hide being insensitive. There's a lot of ways to interpret that statement and a variety of implications based on which interpretation you use. I decided to go with this set. This one may be a tiny bit more personally introspective for me, for a variety of reasons which may or may not be reflected in the story itself. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that.

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><p><strong>Sensitivity<strong>

One thing I've managed to figure out over the years is that, if you're a normal person, you never stop learning throughout your entire life. And if you're not a normal person and you do stop learning, you generally aren't really living. Life is all about the experience, and each new experience is what adds to life. That's not to say that it's always easy, learning new things; you learn a lot of things you wish you didn't know, and sometimes it's a hard path to learn something you want or need to know. Don't I know that all too well.

It's that kind of mindset that drove me to leave home in the first place, to get out and experience the rest of the world instead of staying cooped up in my little hole. I grew up in a conclave of pretty much all Rhyhorns, Rhydons, and Rhyperiors, rarely exposed to the outside world and only learning a little about the other types of Pokémon there were in the world out there. Sure, we'd get a visitor every now and then, and on occasion we'd have to deal with some adventurous trainer hoping they could find something of value in our little corner of the world, but for the most part we stuck to ourselves and that's the way we liked it.

Of course, that's not to say none of us ever left. On the contrary, we had a few here and there who decided they wanted to see more, or who wanted to experience life under a trainer. And they'd be back every now and then to regale fascinating, entertaining, or horrifying stories of life on the outside. For most, it didn't incite anything except a desire to stay in where the craziness wasn't, but I always found them kind of appealing. So there came a time where I decided to set out on my own.

I guess I'm what you'd call a free spirit - I got tired of seeing the same things over and over again, and I had no desire to be cooped up by some trainer who'd probably be just doing the same thing with me over and over again, having me battle some hapless Pokémon with types that weren't any good against me. I didn't really want to do much battling in the first place. So when I set out on my own, I intended to stay my own Rhydon. That said, I was very eager to make friends, especially with Pokémon that weren't my own kind.

I wasn't too terribly scared to be leaving home for the first time. Our kind are...well, I don't know if I'd go as far as to say "fearless," but we're pretty chill about most things. Part of that is due to our physiology. Our bodies are very tough, especially our hides. We put them through a lot of abuse and take it in stride. And while I've heard a lot of human information about Pokémon is mythical or exaggerated, they got one thing about us right: we can't feel a bloomin' thing on our hides.

Now, of course, we don't not feel anything ever. But if a blow causes pain - usually, something like grass or water or ice that we have a natural sensitivity to - the pain is deep, far below our hides to the parts of our bodies where we actually have nerves. That we can feel, and yeah, it's as unpleasant as you might think. But even with that, we have a lot less to endure than other Pokémon. And yeah, we can take the heat really well. What you call a magma pool, we call a hot tub. Actually, probably a better hot tub than what you would call a hot tub - again, the whole water thing.

As you might expect, when you're not likely to have to endure any kind of serious pain, you get kinda careless about what you put your body through. Our friends and family tend to be pretty rough with each other. Heck, usually when I was hanging out with my friends, we'd get up and wrestle and fight with each other, just for the hell of it. I've personally been sent through weakened rock walls and buried under minor avalanches, by the guys I consider my closest buddies. It's all in good fun - it's not like we're worried about it hurting us.

The ones who have left the fold and come back for visits generally give the impression that the outside world is far less rough in general than we are with each other. The obvious exception being if they go with a trainer and start battling, but if they're going out there for that reason they basically already want it. Since I wasn't planning on doing any battling, I was even less concerned than most about what might happen out there. So I greeted the world pretty much head on and horn forward.

Wel, my naivete did get me in some trouble. But it wasn't really in the way I expected it to, which was probably why it took so long for me to actually catch on to it.

I said before that I didn't really know that much about the outside world or other Pokémon. That was part of the reason I wanted to make a lot of friends - I wanted to expand not just what I knew of the world, but who else occupied the world. It didn't occur to me that I would have to think more about how to approach the world now that I was out in it. That's one of those things that I really could have stood to learn early on, but, well, I didn't.

The first friend I made was a Blaziken. Nice guy, confident, one could say cocksure, very outgoing. We hit it off well right away, and I thought I had a guy on my side for good. But it didn't last nearly that long. It was one night, not long after we met, we were joshing around with a couple other guys and he took a crack at me. I did what I usually did with my buddies, and gave him a nice little playful jab to counter. Well, wouldn't you know it, I shattered that poor bird's arm like it was made of gypsum, and he broke a few ribs from hitting the ground after the blow. Not exactly the outcome I was aiming for.

I'm sure it comes as no shock to you that he was pissed. What I think got him more than the injuries, though, was my response to it. I was pretty callous towards the whole thing, wondering why he was so angry and what I had done wrong. After all, I had just done what I always did with my buddies. The end result was, he wanted me gone, and I obliged, still not getting what had happened.

Now, you may have heard that Rhydons are forgetful. I protest that, we're not really forgetful, we just don't really hold on to things that aren't all that important to us. Something like this, this stuck with me and it wasn't going anywhere. So you would think, after this first lesson, that I'd catch on pretty quickly. Uh-uh. This pattern repeated itself a bunch more times. Different Pokémon, different situations, similar outcomes; I would start getting comfortable, treat them like one of my old friends, and inevitably there would be a serious injury and I would be sent packing, completely lost and wondering if I just couldn't make friends with anyone who wasn't one of my kind. It was pretty disheartening, having so much trouble of this kind, especially because I hadn't even imagined it as a possibility. I mean, I was ready for maybe encountering battles, natural hazards that would put my life at risk like bogs or something, maybe unpleasantness just in general towards me, but this? Not a shade.

But then I had a turn of good luck. It had been a while since I left, not sure exactly how long since at that time I didn't really have a concept of keeping time more than over a few days (we aren't really in dire need of a calendar in our little conclave). I'd had quite a few of those bad experiences - twenty-seven, in fact. See, I do have a good memory when it matters. It was starting to eat at me, and I really was seriously contemplating going back, because I wasn't sure I could make a friend out here. As luck would have it, I was about to, and he was about to turn everything around.

I came across a cave in a rocky cliff, a lot smaller than the caves I was used to but not bad nonetheless. There was an Aggron at the mouth of the cave. Another nice guy, but more quiet and unassuming, just one of those kinds of guys who takes life at face value and avoids trouble. He saw me being kind of downtrodden and invited me in for a meal. I took it, and started being hopeful again. I told myself I wasn't going to screw this one up.

Well, I would have, if he hadn't been a lot tougher than the others. It was the same pattern all over again, after a few days when I got comfortable I started acting like I would with my old friends. The difference this time was that I didn't do any damage. Aggrons are tough, at least as tough as Rhydons if not tougher. It doesn't hurt that they also have that added Steel type which probably would let them survive an entire mountain dropping on them. Unlike Rhydons, though, they have hides that are sensitive, at least to touch in general. So after I chucked him a playful blow after he ribbed me, very much like with the Blaziken, he wasn't hurt at all, but he was confused. I remember him looking at me oddly, and asking me if he'd hit a sore spot. Naturally, this confused me, since I wasn't offended at all, and it took a while to sort anything out.

I gotta hand it to him, though. I mean, Aggrons look like they're mindless battering rams, but seriously, underneath they're sharp as tacks. Once we managed to sort everything out between us he pretty quickly managed to deduce where the problem had been in my previous friendships. Of course, telling it in hindsight like this it's already pretty obvious, but at the time it was a huge revelation to me: I had hurt them because I didn't know how badly I _could_ hurt them. Treating them like my Rhydon buddies was my huge mistake, because they weren't so highly resistant to pain and injury.

You can imagine how I felt after hearing that. Yeah, it really quickly became clear why they had been so pissed off. The world I came from was so different, and they had no idea; they thought I was some kind of psycho who hurt them for the hell of it, or some ridiculously violent guy who got angry and started hitting for no reason. And their world was so different to me, I had no idea that friends had different ways of expressing themselves. The end result was that my ignorance and actions had left me with no friends. Well, one friend, at that point.

I'm so thankful that he was willing to help me out. It meant arresting my travels, but at this point I was much more desperate to stop my unintentional rampage. Unfortunately, accepting his help was the easy part; the rest of it wasn't bound to be so simple.

I basically had to learn a completely different way of interacting with the world. It started with my hands. I don't have a real tactile sense in my hands - that whole insensitive hide thing again. So I didn't really have that intuitive sense of how hard I was grabbing anything, including perhaps the arm of a smaller Pokémon which might get crushed under my grip, as happened to one of my unfortunate friends. Normally, I just grab rocks, which most of them can handle the force I put on them, and if they can't they aren't terribly important in the first place. I had to basically teach myself how to handle everything with kid gloves, and then learn how to adjust that pressure. Fortunately I can kind of feel how hard I'm using those muscles, so even if I can't judge my touch of the object directly, experimenting with different grip strengths to get a better idea of what's safe and what isn't.

It didn't get much easier from there; even though I was getting the general idea of what I had to do, I still had to apply it to everything. And when I say everything, I mean _everything_. My arms, my legs, my tail, my torso, my head, I had to figure out the force-feedback on every part of my body and how to apply it in all sorts of different situations. Aggron was very helpful, seeing as he was a similar build to myself he could demonstrate what I needed to do. He also helped by giving me examples of what happens when I overdo it. Even I he wasn't using real bones and tissues, the examples were still plenty jarring, the kind of stuff that just doesn't happen to Rhydons.

It did not come easy, and I frequently found myself frustrated. But I stuck with it because I didn't want to spend the rest of my days out in the world alone. I figured out how to interact with others without being too rough. I figured out how to dial back a friendly cuff to something even a Pikachu wouldn't wince at, how to grab and draw someone without dislocating their shoulder or grinding their forearm bones to dust, how to play-fight without it turning into a vicious beating. And I learned how to adjust to a wide variety of different Pokémon, different toughnesses and different attitudes. It made a lot of things easier - for example, I was actually able to eat all those different Berries whole, rather than smashed to a pulp like before. It was a lot less messy.

There was another aspect I had to be trained into, as well, and that was the art of communication. Rhydon buddies don't generally chatter very much; we'll give an occasional jibe or joke, but we aren't much for talking feelings or anything like that. It was very different on the outside, and Aggron had a task in educating me on not just physical sensitivity, but verbal sensitivity as well. How to talk so someone knows I'm joking. How to listen to others and understand how they feel, and what kinds of responses to give. Being a friend in many cases would require me to be sitting around and talking, rather than the more physical style of friendship I had been used to. It was a challenge, especially for a guy like me who's always been on the active side.

It was a long time, with a lot of frustration and failure before elation and success. But I really started to get the hang of it. And as I did, I got more confident again, more certain that I could make friends and then keep them this time. And that's what I did, using what I had learned to get close to other new Pokémon and start becoming more friendly with them. I knew enough to give them a little forewarning about myself, and found they were exceedingly understanding of me. There were times when I got a little more forceful than what I intended, but I had learned enough about dialing it back that I didn't really hurt them, just maybe surprised them a bit. And because they knew what I was going through, they didn't hold it against me. It's a great feeling, really.

I've learned a lot, and even after Aggron had taught me all he could I learned more, either on my own by extending what I had already been taught, or from others who had additional advice to offer me. I've started traveling again, more ready to take on the world than ever before, and able to more readily coexist with the rest of the Pokémon. The first thing I did when I started off again was revisit the friends I had tried to make before, to apologize and explain myself and try to mend the hard feelings. Some of them weren't receptive to my efforts, others were much more willing to forgive and become friends again. I've taken each decision in stride; some were hurt more than others, and I understand enough now to accept that it can be hard to let some things go. But I will keep on my way, trying my best to ensure I never overdo it.

Maybe I'm not a sensitive guy, in more ways than one. But I found that it pays to learn. If for no other reason than a lot of other people are, and if you can figure out how to at least emulate it, you'll be a lot better off.

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><p>I think I'll just leave this one at that.<p> 


End file.
